You should always phrase like this.It is very hard to tell you what to do, because only you can know it, so if you think your project is not worth it, well, then you cant work properly on it, so drop it, but try to avoid these situations though...

better make a list of awesome things you like to have in your game and then code them (or learn first, then code).

But be careful about getting lost in unachievable daydreams and feature creep. Keep your goals very small so that you have some hope of achieving them, and don't add to your list until you've accomplished something.

Dedication is a skill that can be applied in many fields during your life so it's a good thing to master.However, as I said it's a skill that you have to practice, and the way to practice it is to keep going, even if it's not fun anymore.Development is not always fun, there are less fun parts and particularly annoying parts but if you can't get over them you'll never have anything on your hands that you can be proud of.Nobody is going to tie you in front of your PC to finish your projects and there's no magic trick to keep motivated either, so it's all up to you.

It's looking pretty good so far. Keep it up! I agree with the previous posters on dedication, it's a skill like any other and takes practice.

Something that has helped me recently(over the last year) is having a clear goal in mind from the outset and keeping the game "simple".

I think if you sit down at the beginning and decide what your final game will include, write it all out story/levels/features/classes/etc, before you even touch coding then you have a better chance of success. From there it's all about the determination to keep going till you're done.

I used to start on new projects on a whim. I'd get an idea, and started coding on it the same day. I generally lasted a few weeks or even a month before I got stuck or bored of it and just dropped it. Nowadays when I get an idea I think about it for a long time. Something that sounds awesome when you come up with it but gets really meh after just a few days or even a few weeks isn't really a good idea in the first place. I imagine the players will get bored of the concept even quicker than I will, so why settle for anything less than what you yourself would find interesting in the long run?

TL;DR: Don't jump right in on coding your "great" idea. Instead, let it "boil" for a few weeks and see if it still has you hooked. Basically, have one or two ideas cooking while you work on your current "proved" good idea(s).

TL;DR: Don't jump right in on coding your "great" idea. Instead, let it "boil" for a few weeks and see if it still has you hooked. Basically, have one or two ideas cooking while you work on your current "proved" good idea(s).

This is pretty good advice, but you could also try going the other way: instead of ruminating on ideas for weeks, try boiling your ideas down to a very small core concept that you can get up and running in a very short amount of time (think hours or days, not weeks). That way you can spend a week creating a prototype to see if it feels as fun as you thought it would. Then if it works, great, spend some more time on it (adding very small features incrementally), and if not, you're only out a short amount of time and you can jump on the next project.

But be careful about getting lost in unachievable daydreams and feature creep. Keep your goals very small so that you have some hope of achieving them, and don't add to your list until you've accomplished something.

also have to quote myself, ofc i'm oversimplifying when saying "just code". agentd's approach is very healthy i think. do not rush, take your time.

small thoughtful steps helped me avoiding getting stucked. avoiding getting numbed by lack of knowledge or general suckness. slow pace, learning, making small demos. coding like that, i was able to get a few things done i was sorta afraid of before.

A month?? NO! God DAMMIT. Of course, right when school restarts. Maybe I'll get lucky the 5th time around.Yes that's right. It's happened 4 times now in a time when I can't do it. In a row. Grr

Ha, yeah. It's almost like they purposely time them to coincide with the beginning of school in August or final tests in December and April. I wonder if it has something to do with the organizers' schedules?

Ha, yeah. It's almost like they purposely time them to coincide with the beginning of school in August or final tests in December and April. I wonder if it has something to do with the organizers' schedules?

Don't worry, LD timings are never good for me either. Since it's always on the weekends I always have something going on like traveling, parties, visiting relatives or friends (or they're visiting us), or just something more important to do. I only got to participate once and since it was my first game jam I got over ambiguous and couldn't finish in time. Guess it sucks to be a programmer with a social life.

Looking at it from the other end of a career, please let me just say that 6 months is nothing!! I worked in business programming for ... well quite a long time ... till retiring recently and I have uncoded game designs going back - checks repository - over 20 years!! And some of those are beauties let me tell you!!

(Get to the point old man!) OK, my point is if you're stuck on one project, do some work on another one. Have a few on the go at different stages of completion and then you can always pick one up and get a change of pace. Do some animation art on one, engine work on another one, or even just user instructions/help text. (BTW user instructions are a good place to start on any software, games or not: if it doesn't make sense in words, maybe it doesn't actually make sense as a concept, or with a game if you can't make it sound fun, maybe it won't be fun!)

Also FWIW that kind of multi-tasking with juggling various projects is the way you'll probably work if you get any kind of programming job, so it's good career practice!

And if the games you're making are good and original then there's no hurry right? They'll still be good and original when all the clones of the latest big thing are dead and gone...

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